


Chasing Ghosts of Dreams

by ecotone



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecotone/pseuds/ecotone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Project was filled with ghosts, and now only ghosts are left to tell its stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Ghosts of Dreams

They’re all chasing ghosts.

Washington sees them in the way Carolina looks at herself, in the reflection of the Meta's helmet.

Maine’s helmet, a small part of him thinks. Your name is Leonard, another part echoes back. David Washington died when Epsilon self-destructed, you are his remains taped back together.

_Play it again. Play it again. Play it--_

Project Freelancer is gone, its agents dead but unburied. None of them will have rest, not even him and Carolina, not even if they are given burials and memorials and national holidays.

He is not the only one with ghosts, he thinks, looking at Tucker’s sword. The simulation troopers went through just as much, mercenaries and secret projects, freelancers, deserts full of aliens, prophecies--

Washington looks at the troopers and then looks at his hands, remembers what he was like in the Project. He puts one more ghost to rest, though he's not quite sure which one. 

There are still many, many more.

==

Carolina’s ghosts are shaped like her father.

There are many, all filling her thoughts; there is the Director, the Alpha and the Meta, agent Texas, Epsilon. They were all created by him, in some small way.

She wishes she were more like her mother.

She wishes she got to apologize to Tex.

Honestly, she thinks, she needs to apologize for a lot of things. She can't, though; everyone she wants to talk to died years ago.

Closure isn’t for everyone, but Carolina wishes it were for her.

==

South Dakota’s ghost is shaped like her brother, and she hates him for it. She hates herself even more.

North was rounded edges where she’s sharp corners and hard planes. She wants to go down kicking and screaming, raging against the world.

He went down quietly, trying to protect her. She hates it, wishes he had hated her as he died.

Then she’d be the ghost, she thinks. Delta, in the back of her head, agrees.

Delta, faulty logic incarnate, has his own ghosts, his own problems, his own enemies. She is one of them.

He wants her dead. South, for once in her life, doesn’t disagree with him.

This is the only way to put her ghosts to rest. As in death as in life; two pieces of a whole.

She hopes there is an afterlife, if only for him.

==

CT is haunted by death.

She has few regrets, looking back on her life. None that she can remember, anyways, though the black edging around her vision is creeping closer, and it's becoming harder to think clearly. The only thing she wants is more time.

She needs to explain, and then she can go. If Agent Connecticut is the only one that needs to die to expose Project Freelancer, she will gracefully accept martyrdom.

Somewhere in her heart, she knows she will not be the only one. She cannot help that, though, she can just hope that Texas will do what she has to.

Maybe that is her only regret. Texas casts a shadow, but maybe she is not one. CT- Connie- will not be around to find out.

She dies with a tomahawk in her chest and hope in her heart. In doing so, she lays herself to rest.

CT believes she is doing the right thing, that she will help her family. Years later, her helmet will serve as a reminder.

==

The Meta has no ghosts. Sigma is creative enough to think of a few.

His ghosts are the other parts of himself. They are broken, a misshapen bundle of traits crammed into one being’s neural implants. _We will not be whole_ , Sigma thinks. _Not yet_ , he adds, in case another part of himself is listening.

Omega seethes, Delta and Theta shut themselves out, Eta and Iota think in unison, and Sigma waits.

The Meta moves on, and Sigma tries to keep up.

==

Texas is her own ghost, which is in equal parts hilarious and terrifying.

Agent Texas does not, in all honesty, care much about the Project. Tex cares about beating people up and being on the leaderboard, about protecting who she needs to protect. And then CT betrayed them all, exposing the Director, and in doing so saved them all.

Well, Beta thinks, staring at her screen, _saved_ isn’t what she’d call this.  
She was a shadow, created in the image of a ghost by a man who'd spent half his life chasing ghosts.

Agent Texas had no ghosts. Beta was one.

==

Wyoming has few ghosts, he thinks as he escapes the wreckage of Project Freelancer. He wasn’t truly friends with any of the Agents, except maybe Florida. And Florida, he thinks, is alive. The twins might still be kicking around somewhere, and Carolina might've managed to crawl back to Freelancer HQ. He has connections, still, he thinks. The implosion of the Project is not the worst thing that has ever happened to him.

He gets a phone call, something about a simulation outpost and a bounty on some kid's head.

Tucker is someone he knows little about and cares even less for. Revenge isn’t very gentlemanly, but Wyoming is a mercenary. Whoever’s head puts food on the table and bullets in his rifle.

Gamma runs the calculations. In every loop, Flowers is dead. Wyoming hopes he can find the timeline where he, at least, lives.

If not, he’ll be with the rest of them.

==

North Dakota isn't haunted by anything, but he wishes he was.

His sister has taken on all of their burdens, even though North had pleaded for her to let him help. "You've done enough," he'd said again and again, dragging them through abandoned buildings and stretching forests. "We're a team."

He knew they hadn't been, not truly, not since Theta burst into his life like the fireworks he loved so much. They were out here because North couldn't handle loving two little siblings at once; he'd spent so long looking out for one he couldn't figure out how to watch out for two.

As Maine--no, something in Maine's armor-- looms above him, as South screams, North thinks that he wasn't able to save either of them. That is what he will be haunted by for these last few seconds, he realizes. Theta is there, in his mind, panicking and trying to help him, and then he is gone.

Which is worse, North thinks, to have no ghosts or to die with them still inside you?

==

Washington looks at the Meta helmet and sees the Project. Carolina looks at the Meta helmet and sees a cliff, sees two sets of twins.

Tucker looks at the helmet and sees a beginning. Looking at the Freelancers, he hopes they can see it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> the angst war is making me want to write sad stuff, lmao. 
> 
> first work in the rvb fandom!! i'm not very refreshed on timelines, so stuff might be a bit weird on that front. Title's from [lift the curse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYsEN2lobg) by Astronautalis.


End file.
